Fabio Akita releases free book on AI, work, and learning

Available in Portuguese and English, “Competent Enough” brings together the author’s research and experiments and remains open to corrections

Fabio Akita made available for free a preview version of Competent Enough, a book that discusses artificial intelligence, its limits, and its effects on work and learning. Published on October 16, the edition can be read in the browser or downloaded in EPUB and PDF, with no sign-up required.

The work gathers and reorganizes articles from the author’s blog into a single narrative. According to the presentation, the content was rewritten, illustrated, and went through a new fact-check. The idea is to serve readers with questions about the technology, including professionals worried about job displacement and managers evaluating AI adoption proposals.

The book has 22 chapters, divided into five parts, plus two interludes and ten appendices. The page states that the print edition totals 531 pages, with 146 glossary terms and 320 references.

The topics include the debate on artificial general intelligence, known by the acronym AGI, the practical application of the tools, and the evaluation of announcements and performance indicators. The risks of granting access to AI agents and the technology’s possible consequences for the job market are also covered.

The supplementary materials address how the models work, study strategies supported by AI, and security precautions when using agents. There is also content aimed at programmers and an explanation of the technology’s own participation in producing the book.

Agents took part in the writing process

According to Akita, the production process started from 131 blog posts, totaling nearly half a million words. AI agents produced the drafts, while reading, cuts, corrections, and the approval of each chapter were the author’s responsibility.

The work also used a tracking system to link paragraphs to their source texts. The structure makes it possible to identify which parts of the book need revision whenever a blog post is changed.

Edition will still receive updates

Identified as 1.0.0-preview.9, the available version is still under development. Readers can report typos or factual errors through GitHub, where the source code and release notes are also available.

According to the page, the digital files will remain free in upcoming updates. A hardcover edition is planned for Amazon, but the presentation does not give a release date.

Reading and downloads are available on the Akita’s AI Lair website.